ENERCOMP Seminar Series

Overview of NDT for Polymer Composites Materials and Structures

Thursday, October 16th, 2025

ABSTRACT

  • NDT methods are currently employed in the quality assurance during the manufacturing and for in-service inspection of components and structures made with Polymer matrix, particularly in Aerospace, Defense, and infrastructure domains.  Most of these techniques are focused on the detection, sizing, and characterization of flaws such as delaminations/disbonds, porosity, etc., at pre-determined critical locations that lead to failures in the component.

  • Advanced NDE methods are being developed by the Centre for NDE at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (CNDE@IITM) that may potentially influence the fabrication, inspection, safety, costing, and maintainability of the aerospace components and its fleets in the military as well as the commercial sector.  Some of the techniques that will be discussed here includes: (a) Use of Sensors for polymer Cure monitoring,  (b) Use of ultrasonic guided waves for the improved inspection of complex structures and components including hidden areas, (c) Structural health monitoring of components and structures using attached and embedded sensor networks, (d) Use of new and novel active thermography techniques for monolithic and sandwich components, and (e) Microwave and Terahertz based imaging and (f) X-ray computed tomography.

  • Using the methods discussed here, the owner, now has the opportunity to take vital decisions such as component integrity and propose necessary repair/replacement or estimate the remaining life of the component.

About the speaker

Prof. Krishnan Balasubramanian is a distinguished Institute Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras, and currently leading the Centre for Non-destructive Evaluation since its founding in 2001. He is currently the President of the Indian Society for NDT (ISNT).  He is also the faculty-in-charge of Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Accenture Center for Product X, and the Center for Advanced Automotive Research. He also served as the Dean, Industrial Consulting and Sponsored Research at IIT Madras between 2012-18.

With over 40 years of experience in Non-destructive evaluation, his work spans maintenance, quality assurance, manufacturing, and design. He is a FELLOW of the Indian National Academia of Engineers (INAE), National Academia of Sciences India (NASI), Indian Academia of Sciences (IASc) and Academia International NDT (Italy). Having guided 35+ Ph.D. and 60+ M.S. students, he has received notable awards such as the Roy Sharpe Prize from BiNDT(UK), ISTEM Entrepreneurial Faculty Member Award (Auburn University, USA), ISNT National NDT Award, DRDO Academy Excellence Award, Abdul Kalam National Technology Innovation Fellowship, JC Bose Fellowship, Distinguished Alumni Award from NIT Tiruchirappalli and a Lifetime Achievement Award from IIT Madras.

He has over 320+ SCI Journal Publications and over 60 Patent filings in India and abroad. Actively engaged in innovation, he is instrumental in incubating 12 startups that employ more than 1300 professionals and operate across 12 countries.